Iridesce are an emerging alt-rock four-piece with 90s styled groove from Camden Town, London, who formed in 2016. After releasing their debut single that November - 'Better From You' - they went on to put out further tracks last year, along with their first EP 'Waves'. Latest single 'Elysium' is joined by a new video unveiled this week.
Who are you?
We’re called Iridesce. I’m Marco Spaeth - I sing, play rhythm guitar and keys, along with my three other friends and bandmates who are: James Doig (lead guitar), Thomas Guizzetti (bass, backing vocals), and Vincent Lafont (drums, percussion).
Tell us something about yourself and how you came to be where you are today.
Something we’re still trying to wrap our heads around is how we actually managed to meet each other and form this band. As a band we come from Camden Town, London, but we’re all from different parts of Europe: Thomas is from Italy, James is from the Isle of Wight, Vincent’s from Paris, and I’m a combination of all of the above. The odds of the four of us coming together are especially staggering. We’re not complaining though, we’ll take it! James and I met on our first night away from home at uni here in London about four years ago, and have gradually built up to the four of us now. So it's been a slow process, it's taken us a while to find each other and get going, but here we are.
Give us an idea of your musical style and influences.
We’ve always loved melodic, anthemic and emotive music – bands like Radiohead, The Verve or U2 have directly shaped how we write our songs, and the standards we’re always trying to reach with our music. More recently, bands like Cigarettes After Sex and The 1975 have been really impactful, but we also love and take inspiration from all the RnB and hip hop stuff that’s so prominent nowadays, as well as the greats of pop music like ABBA and Michael Jackson – all those people really took their music to places no one had gone to before, and we find that to be extremely inspiring.
Explain the production and writing process behind your songs.
Well, we’ve been getting away with doing everything ourselves so far. We’ve taught ourselves how to record and produce, and have also directed all our music videos. In terms of the actual process, I think the best way of describing it is that it's based on surprise above anything else – instinct over intellect. Whatever feels right, as long as it's original and comes from the right place creatively, is what we go for. The songs tend to arrive fully formed and immediately out of nowhere or not at all for us, it seems. We don’t really write them in a way; they write themselves – we just have to fish for long enough before one introduces itself.
'Elysium' has been with us for a while now, so it feels really great to release it. It came from playing around in the studio one night early last year - that’s where that lead piano riff appeared and set the tone for the whole first part of the song. For a while it had an entirely different outro section that just wasn’t working, and it was only until I was messing around with one of the first things I’d written on piano from back when I was 14, that I realised the two parts flowed perfectly into one another, as though they’d been written for each other.
I showed it to the guys and everyone got really excited; then James found that lead riff and the whole section fell into place. The story behind the writing of that song makes it particularly special to me because I remember distinctly, at 14, writing that in full idealism of moving to London with the hope of finding the right people to form the band with, the ones who could turn that piano demo into what its become - I remember imagining then what that section sounds like now, so its pretty special to realize that that’s actually happened.
Can we catch up with you at any forthcoming live shows?
Yes! We’re headlining Fest in Camden on September 13th, and further shows are in the works currently. We’d love to see you there.
How's the rest of the year looking, plans-wise?
Busy. We’ve got a lot of material that we need to finish, recording-wise, and then we’ll be getting ready for the next wave of releases and hopefully touring.
Where can we hear more of your music?
You can check us out on Spotify – everything we’ve released is on there! - and YouTube.
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